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CURRENTS; Lion and Lamb Lie Down in the Bronx

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January 16, 1992, Page 00003 The New York Times Archives

IN the beginning, Christina Schlesinger, a Manhattan artist, endured a hail of bottles thrown from the elevated subway tracks at the East Tremont Avenue station when she drew the grid for "Peaceable Kingdom," her mural on a brick wall in the South Bronx.

But when she fleshed out the mural with cotton-candy pink clouds and forest greens, she attracted a more appreciative audience. "One guy stood in front of it for a long time," she said. "He said I had something wrong." It seemed to him that the lion and the lamb couldn't possibly coexist.

"I told him that was the whole point," she said. "They're a message of peace and hope."

"Yeah, man!" the onlooker said, apparently satisfied.

The mural was commissioned for a wall of the Kennedy Child Study Center, a school for children with learning and physical disabilities in the West Farms section. Ms. Schlesinger included some images from the Bronx Zoo, the New York Botanical Garden and the High Bridge over the Harlem River. When she discovered that the neighborhood had once been farmland, a bucolic theme seemed appropriate.

The mural can be seen at Boston Road and 178th Street, and from the East Tremont Avenue elevated station on the No. 2 and No. 5 lines.

A version of this article appears in print on January 16, 1992, on Page C00003 of the National edition with the headline: CURRENTS; Lion and Lamb Lie Down in the Bronx. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe